Aiming Point Strategy - Central Solar Receiver

Hello,

I am currently working on a way to set up an aiming point optimization strategy for a central solar tower, using MATLAB and SDK. I want to take advantage of the wonderful APIs of SDK compared to other softwares like SolarPILOT but I encounter some difficulties.

There is an input in the tcs_moltensalt module of SDK named helio_aim_points. Is this input used for the calculation of all the flux maps ? And if so, how ?

I am quite familiar with SolarPILOT (which happens to be where you have taken your models from for this module) and in this software we can specify different aiming point strategies (sigma aiming, etc...) and set some parameters for each one. Are those strategies implemented in the tcs_moltensalt module (or any other) ? I couldn't find any parameter giving such an indication.

Finally,I would like to know if it is possible to have only one flux map by module run (as it is in DELSOL and SolarPILOT) instead of one every delta_flux_hrs hours for n_flux_days days ?

Thanks in advance for any insight,

Charles

Dear Charles,

As you mention, SAM runs SolarPILOT for heliostat field layout and optimization.

The standalone version of SolarPILOT has some features that are not available in SAM, such as the different aiming methods. SAM uses the "simple aim points" aiming method, as described in the Heliostat Field Design topic of SAM's Help system. It is also not possible in SAM to control the number of flux maps the model generates.

As far as I can tell, SAM is not using the helio_aim_points input variable because its value does not appear to be set anywhere in the code. The developers may have included that as an input for testing purposes. You can see that the required field is set to '?' to indicate that it is an optional input.

Best regards,
Paul.